Mastodon Linked To Early Man

A Harvard University archaeologist has found in Mexico the first conclusive evidence that early man on the American continents hunted mastodons.

Miss Cynthia Irwin, a Harvard graduate student, discovered the remains of a mastodon, an extinct elephant-like animal, together with scrapers and other human tools dating back some 30,000 years. Excited by the discovery, a number of U.S. archaeologists and paleontologists have left for El Horno - a site about ten miles from Puebla, Mexico - to examine the findings.

Although hundreds of mastodon skeletons have been found in the New World, from Alaska to South America, they have previously never been definitely associated with human tools. Mastodons flourished in forests on the two American continents from about one-half million to 10,000 years ago.

ESTIMATES AGE

Miss Irwin discovered the remains and tools in the Valsequillo Zone earth-strata, and on geological evidence alone, estimated the age at 30,000 years. Scientists will use radio-carbon dating to check her estimate.

The modern elephant, while belonging to the same animal family as the mastodon, more closely resembles the larger mammoth, another long-nosed species scientists have known for some time that early man hunted the mammoth; but similar evidence for the mastodon was lacking until the joint Peabody Museum and University of Puebla expedition made its discovery.